London 2012: Week 1

I've now been at home for just under a week, spending time with two of my brothers and my parents as well as hosting my Scottish family for a few days. 

It's been fun. 
On Monday we headed off to the Cross Country phase of the 3-day Eventing in Greenwich Park. 

As if the day wasn't exciting enough, I got to see Mary King, my childhood heroine, complete an immaculate round that eventually contributed towards the team's silver medal success the following day. 
I'm a little ashamed to say that, to begin with, I was one of the sceptics and wondered how on earth London was going to be able to pull off such an enormous feat as hosting the Olympic Games. From my experiences so far the city has pulled out all of the stops and are hosting a Games to be incredibly proud of. Beginning with the quirky opening ceremony - which had my whole family shrieking with laughter at one moment and then welling up the next - on to the fantastic volunteers and the army that are such a visible and welcome presence at every event, and the generally positive response from athletes and spectators, I think, ultimately, so far LOCOG has every right to feel things are going well. 
Even the police were friendly as we arrived in Blackheath at crack of dawn on Monday:

Little L making friends with the locals. 

The venue itself was fantastic with hardly any queueing for loos, food or drinks, despite the 50,000-strong crowd, and the course, like the opening ceremony, paid homage to all the eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of the British character: 

Jump 5, complete with red squirrels on toadstools.

Riders quite literally had to jump the moon.

The view out towards the National Maritime Museum.

One of the water complexes was a scene from The Wind in the Willows
(you can just see Ratty and Moley fishing in the  water on the right of the picture).

Jump 13: Market Trader's Stall.

'My' jump: Vintage Massey Ferguson and Trailer.

The support for Team GB was incredible.

A toast to success.
Go Team GB!

The only downside of the day is that I am a total numpty and carted my camera bag and equipment all the way to Greenwich only to realise that I'd left the battery on charge at home. 

Idiot.

High Five for Friday!

Another link up with Lauren over at From My Grey Desk...

What a great week it's been - it's almost too hard to choose a top 5, but I dug deep and came up with these:

1/ My baby brother's graduation was fab and was followed by a delicious meal at Restaurant Mark Greenaway.
YUM. 
I'll share more next week...

Ben's main course looked almost too good to eat...

2/ I got to see my parents for the first time in aaaaaaaaaaages. Hurrah!
My father visited a local auction house and got me this:

Can you guess what's inside?
That's another treat that awaits you for next week...

3/ Good news: I'm cat-sitting Scoop's brother, Billy
Bad news: They DON'T HAVE INTERNET ACCESS.
Makes me feel dizzy just typing that. Gulp.
Wee Billy looks a lot like his mother:

Ohmygoodness, it is HARD taking a picture of a black cat.

4/ You may or may not know that I have a thing for champagne, so I couldn't resist taking a picture of this sign I spotted on Broughton Street in Edinburgh:

5/ TWO out of my three babies pets had birthdays this week. 
F Sharp was 24 and Princess Poll was 11.  They got apples. They weren't that fussed.
Also, these photos prove that we have had ONE DAY'S SUNSHINE this week.
Hmmm.

Princess P showing off her Roman nose.

In human years she would be in her late 70's, I think.
An oldie but a fatty goodie.

So, that's about it: good food with my family, some sun (and horses), a cat, champagne, and a mysterious box. 
Standard week, really.

This weekend promises to be full of excitement, with Little L's pony day/ sleep-out-in-a-teepee birthday party, a trip to the Ceres Highland Games, and a screening of Ben's latest film project at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Makes me exhausted just thinking about it...